1. content: how would we characterize the distinctive beliefs, ideas, doctrines, of a renewed theology;

Modernety thrives off of polaritys, off of binaries. It finds it important to reduce things to small categories such as saved/unsaved, beliver/unbeliver, gay/straight, black/white. Postmodernity now moves into the area between these. We start dealing with the grey areas.

So to must postmodern theology start to deal with the grey areas. No longer can we see the world in absolute christian terms: were saved/your not, our religion is  the true religion etc. In fact after the last centurrys disasters at Christanities hands we no longer have the right to claim we have the one true God.

Instead, as we move into postmodernity, we must also move away from certanty. We must move into the mystery that we too, like all other faiths and people, have had an expierence of the living God. One that is transformative and that invites us into new depth of reality with God. A true Christian can no longer be marked easily. Being trinitarian/non-trinitarian, pro or con on the historical jesus debate etc no longer can mark one as ‘in or out’. Instead our criteria is for anyone who finds Jesus Christ to be theologically signifigant.

2. theological method: how do we go about constructing such a theology; how do we communicate it?

We must view the bible and all of Christian tradition - from the mystics and the catholics and dessert fatherst to the reformers and modern libereal and conservative scholars - as lines in an ongoing conversation. But no one model can be the final word on anthing. And none of us can have ‘the truth’. As Derrida points out we are always becoming but we never become. Who we are and what we belive is never static and always evolves. As christians we would call this our spiritual journey.

The bible then presents lines in a conversation. Mark presents a more human Jesus, one who denies being the messiagh and who refuses to be worshiped. John, on the other hand, has a more mystical (and racist) Jesus who claims to be one with God etc. Both of these are lines in the conversation that are valid (As is asking ‘how human’ is Jesus).

 We must also reclaim the bibles metaphores. Theology is all model creation. ‘If God is X then the universe Y" or "if the universe is Y then God is X". This then invites us to integrate science into our spirituality (Quantom Theology, Evolutionary Theology, Process Theology).

Some ideas:

God is male and female. But God The Mother has been so long denied that God is more mother now than father.  

The Christian expierence is a mystical one. Like the mystics before us we can through meditation, prayer and spiritual discipline find Union w/Christ.

We are not the only people who have had an expierence with God.

 The earth is Gods first incarnation.

 God is not out there but God is here. The world is Gods body but the world is not God. God is imminent - with in and under the whole of creation - and God is Trasncendent as well.

3. purpose: what are our overriding objectives? what motivates us?

We are motivated by the Holy Spirit to affirm the presence of God in all people. We are not to judge them or to assume that we aor they are more or less spiritual. We encounter them as fellow Sons and Daughters of God and journey together in our process of becoming.

We are here to declare Gods kingdom.

Gods unconditional acceptance of us with out our work.

We are here to see what the world calls the least and see there the greatest mark of God.

We are to stand up to the powers and principalities - those forces that would destroy the human spirit, deny rights to minorities, women, gay and lesbian people, the homeless etc. We are to be an alternative Kingdom, accepting all that the world calls unacceptable.